


Objectification

by vass



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Breq Has Issues, Complicity, Not Sure How To Warn, Other, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 18:10:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11190543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vass/pseuds/vass
Summary: It goes both ways.





	Objectification

Breq is not sexually attracted to Seivarden. At all. This body is restfully lacking in sexual desire, and she isn't at all eager to see how combining sexual touch with _Mercy of Kalr_ 's data compares to her memories of what she lost. The idea is mildly repulsive.

What she would prefer not to remember is that different bodies have different opinions on people's attractiveness. It's an inconvenient fact about being a ship with ancillaries: that people look, sound, smell different to different bodies, trip different associations from past experiences.

Breq isn't attracted to Seivarden, but once upon a time, _Justice of Toren_ One Esk Twelve had found Seivarden's gawky, seventeen-year-old body painfully intriguing. The other ninety-five per cent of One Esk had not seen any appeal at all. Had, where possible, kept that segment (itself biologically sixteen years old) away from its decade lieutenant. Not that Seivarden would have ever detected it. But One Esk would have felt its own body's reaction, and that shared sensation would have been very unwelcome.

That's not the secret. The secret is that if Breq were able to have more than one body... If Seivarden were one of Breq's bodies, Breq would be able to find her, it, appealing now. The thought is the worst sort of betrayal, is almost necrophilic, so she doesn't indulge it as she sometimes has in the past with strangers' bodies, in fantasy: _if you were me..._

Which brings home to her the guilt she should have felt before, for thinking that way even of strangers.

It had seemed natural to her once, when she had seen so many different bodies before, during, and after the ancillary process, to separate in her imagination the body from the person it belonged to. To think of possessing it as she might think of eating a favorite food, not considering how the food had been harvested, before she consumed it and made it part of her.

It's easy not to dwell on those thoughts, in this body. Easy to tuck them away along with the other, greater guilt that Breq doesn't dwell on: _a person died for me to have this body. It was her body, and now it is mine._ Which, put another way, is: _I shouldn't have this body._ And since it's the only body available to her, her only way to live, that's not far from _I shouldn't be alive._

Such thoughts are not compatible with survival, and Breq is very skilled at survival, so she doesn't indulge them often.

But every now and then something will cause the guilt to flare up again, and with it the self-pity, and it will be a while before she controls it again.

"Fleet Captain, I'm sorry."  
"Ship, it's not your fault."

"Actually it is. I'm afraid I gave the lieutenant the idea. She asked me to tell you she's sorry she fucked up, and she'd tell you herself only she's not sure you want to see her."

"Does..." Breq takes a careful breath. "Does she know why I was... why I reacted like that?"

"To be honest, Fleet Captain, I don't know myself. I had thought I understood why you didn't like it at first, when the lieutenant began acting for me, but now I wonder if I've been wrong all along."

"I don't mind her acting for you, Ship. I mind her pretending to be an ancillary." It is difficult to say it, but she owes Ship her honesty. "I mind her pretending that she's dead."

A pause.

"I'm sorry, Captain."  
"So am I, Ship." It was unreasonable, after all, to be so upset.

"May I tell the lieutenant what you told me?" Data: Seivarden in the gym. Exhausted, panting, legs trembling with effort, but still running.

"Seivarden, take a bath and then come back here." The words are out before Breq even registers her intent. She adds silently, not for Seivarden, "Yes, Ship, if you wish."

She doesn't reach, doesn't evince curiosity Ship might detect and respond by showing her what exactly it's saying to Seivarden in the bath.

But she strips down and climbs into bed. It is later than she'd thought. Seivarden enters quietly, takes off the outer layers of her own uniform, and joins her there, curls around her as usual.

Ship is sending data. Seivarden's nervousness and relief at being here with Breq again, and some other emotion Breq can't figure out, not quite confusion or surprise; but better than that, the small amount of tactile data Radchaai officer implants send -- her own body against Seivarden's, the sense -- no matter how incomplete and factually incorrect -- of having more than one body, of not being alone.

The different implants, and physiological differences, that make it clear Seivarden is Seivarden, not another part of Breq; and Ship's own data, Mercy-flavored, the shadow proprioceptive sense of a much smaller, differently shaped ship body than Breq's own; are for once more comfort than pain. Breq is not what she was, but Ship and Seivarden are alive and with her. Holding Seivarden, holding Ship, Breq sleeps.


End file.
